Kogi State Project Coordinator of Agro-Climatic Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscapes (ACReSAL), Barr. Ladi Ahmed Jatto, has called on residents of Akpata community to take advantage of its dry season farming initiative.
She made the call at the Palace of Olu of Apata-Ipakun in Oworo Kingdom, Oba Frederick Durojaiye Balogun, on Wednesday.
Barr. Jatto said she had observed that the people relied more on rain-fed agricultural practices.
She urged the community to embrace prosperity, environmental protection, soil conservation and development, and food security being championed by the ACReSAL Project.
Enlightening them on the project development objectives (PDO) of the ACReSAL Project, which is to increase the implementation of sustainable landscapes management practices in targeted watersheds in northern Nigeria and strengthen Nigeria’s long-term enabling environment for integrated climate-resilient landscape management, she said the PDO is aimed at ensuring food security in the face of changing climatic conditions, whilst also protecting the environment.
The Project Coordinator harped on the need for the people of Apata to embrace the benefits associated with Agro-Forestry, where crops are grown alongside trees, which is fostered through a viable partnership with the FAO, provision of land for planting of economic trees, which the community is sure to benefit from.
She tasked residents to work hard to make the CRF Scheme a success in Apata Community.
The Olu of Apata, while thanking the PC and her team for the visit, pledged the Kingdom’s unfettered support in ensuring the success of the state government and World Bank’s laudable interventions through the ACReSAL Project.
The paramount ruler said the intervention was apt and timely, as the people of Apata are known to be great farmers, thereby making the prospects for dry season farming, after the rains, a very welcome idea.
Afterwards, as a show of commitment to embracing the Project, the visiting ACReSAL team was taken to a vast expanse of land which the paramount ruler assured was earmarked for farming, but required inputs and support.
